


for every atom belonging to me (as good as belongs to you)

by lostlenore



Category: Shades of Magic - V. E. Schwab
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Jossed, Multi, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-02 09:16:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10941462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostlenore/pseuds/lostlenore
Summary: When Kell was eighteen he’d been in the thick of his training with Tieren at the London Sanctuary, and Alucard Emery was nothing more than the latest in a long line of royal tutors.





	for every atom belonging to me (as good as belongs to you)

**Author's Note:**

> This was written between books 2 & 3 and thus headcanon about Alucard's background and reasons for leaving have been jossed ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ Also of note: this fic has a lot of soul-bond feedback loop sex between Rhy & Kell, ymmv on if this is dub-con.

The number of times Kell could remember experiencing anything remotely akin to sympathy for Alucard Emery could be counted on one hand. He didn’t exactly like the itchy, uncomfortable feeling of sympathy in his chest now, as they sat on the balcony of Alucard’s appointed guest rooms watching the fireball of the Emery estate light up the rooftops of Arnes, but if the past few months had taught Kell anything it was when to keep his mouth shut.  

“Here.” Alucard offers him the bottle he’s been nursing for the better part of an hour. “A reward, in part. I don’t usually share, but circumstances being what they are...”

“I wouldn't usually accept water from you if I were on fire," Kells says. "However, circumstances being what they are..." He leans over to snatch the bottle from Alucard before Alucard can take it back.

Alucard laughs. He has a good laugh. Kell appreciates it more when it’s wrapped quietly between the two of them, when he’s the one drawing it out. For a moment, he understands Rhy completely. Alucard’s undivided attention is intoxicating, and a gaping, greedy part of Kell already wants more.

Kell pulls a separate flask from his unending warren of coat pockets and knocks it against the bottle, the sound of metal on glass swallowed by the heaviness of the night around them.

“Cheers.”

Alucard smiles, wild and feral. “To the controlled burning of trash within the city limits.”

Whatever’s inside the flask burns going down, hot and sharp, clearing the remains of the smoke from his throat. Kell thinks of the six filing cabinets hidden behind a panel in the Emery library, the vile photographs they'd contained. There had been pictures of half the court, but Alucard’s file alone was enough to make him sick. Rhy’s file he’d burned without opening.

As if summoned by his thoughts the door creaks open and Rhys walks in, gilded bronze in the dull light of the corridor. He's too skinny still, in Kell's opinion, his cheeks too sharp and sunken to be completely healed. Something in Kell’s stomach squirms again, recognizable but no less uncomfortable than his earlier attack of sympathy: guilt. He wants Rhy to leave. He wants to make Alucard laugh again. He wants to turn back time and untie the strings that bound his and Rhy’s souls together.

He takes another drink.

“This is unusual.” Rhy says, settling onto the overstuffed patio chair Alucard’s currently occupying. He’s still wearing what Kell privately thinks of as his Crown Prince costume: the stiff red coat with its gold-roped braids across one shoulder, a white silk sash draped across his chest. Kell knows for a fact Rhy hates wearing that uniform in private; he must have come to Alucard’s rooms straight from court. Probably hoping Alucard would help him take it off, Kell thinks.

He takes another drink

“Join us, we’re celebrating.” Alucard traces the barest of touches across Rhy’s sash, a lover’s touch. He's been so gentle with Rhy ever since Kell got back it makes Kell want to scream, makes him want want to grip Alucard by the throat and shake him. Rhy is not for him to play with, Rhy is Kell’s, and Kell’s alone.

Something of what he’s feeling must fizzle across the bond. Kell can feel more than see Rhy’s sharp gaze between his shoulder blades, sensation looped with sensation so that he could almost reach out and be certain of the small furrow that appears between Rhy’s brows, the one that only appears when he’s puzzling something out.  

“Do I dare ask what, exactly, we’re celebrating?” Rhy says.

Kell smiles in a way that shows his teeth. “Bonfire night.”

Rhy’s gaze quickens, and Kell can feel the prick of alarm that isn’t quite his shudder down his spine. “Kell,” he says, softly. “What did you do?”

“Why do you assume it was me?” Kell says, shrugging off the way Rhy’s tone pierces straight to the heart of him.

“Probably because it was you,” Alucard says. “Don’t look at me like that darling it was a very exclusive party; I don’t know details, I wasn’t invited. Plausible deniability and all that. Though I understand it was magnificent." He sighs, and Kell feels the ghost of a hand toying with the curls at the nape of Rhy's neck. "I do wish I could be there when the vulture's return from their lovely evening out at the theatre, though. If only so I could laugh in their fucking faces.”

There’s an echo of hurt in Kell’s chest before Rhy squashes it. “I didn’t realize the two of you were in the habit of keeping secrets.” The _from me_ , goes unspoken.

Alucard gives his hand a squeeze and looks straight over Rhy’s shoulder, straight at Kell. Kell can guess what he’s remembering: the heavy clamp of irons around his wrists and ankles, the sway of the river transport set for Delonar, Kell’s voice in his ear, a promise.

 _If you ever set foot in Arnes again I will kill you myself_.

“You know me,” Alucard says, to Kell, to Rhy. He mimes zipping his lips.

“Is that so?” Rhy says. Kell claws at the balcony floor, buffeted by the swell of emotion bubbling through Rhy, over to him. It’s probably telling of their relationship that Kell has far more experience navigating the jagged coastline of Rhy’s anger and pain than he does with  Rhy’s pleasure. There’s anger present now, too, stoked by a hot ember of jealousy that Kell probably shouldn’t find as pleasing as he does, and not a little fear. But wound through the foundation of it all is a desire so consuming, so intense in its wanting that Kell is hollowed out to make room for the breadth of Rhys’s feeling.

Kell has to lean his head back against the cool palace stone and breathe deeply. His flask is empty.

Rhy lifts his hand to Alucard’s mouth and runs a finger over the swell of Alucard’s lip, teasing until Alucard opens for him with a sigh. Kell can feel the wet heat of it on his finger, on Rhy’s finger, the phantom sweep of his tongue across Kell’s knuckles.

When Rhy kisses him--deeply, lavishly--Kell feels his own lips burning with the afterimage of Alucard’s mouth.

Alucard makes quick work of Rhy’s coat, and Rhy welcomes each touch with a hunger that leaves Kell breathless. He’s not used to watching Rhy with his conquests and he wonders if Rhy is always this reactive. Maybe if Kell had reached for him on one of those long, sticky summer nights Rhy would’ve settled himself between Kell’s thighs the way he does with Alucard now, hands flirting coyly with the collar of Alucard’s shirt.

When Kell was eighteen he’d been in the thick of his training with Tieren at the London Sanctuary, and Alucard Emery was nothing more than the latest in a long line of royal tutors. There had been others who floated into their orbit--diplomat’s children, foreign royals just as spoilt as Rhy--but they were temporary. Kell gave it three weeks before Emery packed his bags and fled. A triad might be less boring than a dual user, but neither could touch the stronghold of power that was the Antari. At the end of the day Alucard was a shiny new toy to stave off Rhy's boredom, a stop-gap holding Kell’s place until Kell returned.

Now, Kell holds that thought fast and lets it burn a hole right through him, hot and tender.  

“I can’t help but notice I don’t have your full attention,” Alucard says, and Kell’s head snaps up.

“If you’d like to chat about the secrets you and Kell are keeping from me I’d be happy to give it to you,” Rhy says, looking over Alucard's shoulder straight at Kell. Kell can _feel_ him grinding, filthy and unrepentant, into Alucard’s lap, just as clearly as if it were him spread across Alucard's thighs.

“Sorry darling, I owe him one.” Kell doesn't have any breath left in him to dispute this, not with a full view of Alucard’s hand tucked in Rhy’s pants, knuckles jutting through the fine fabric.

“Oh?” Rhy says, trying to sound calm. As if Kell can’t feel how shivery he is, how liquid hot Alucard’s touch makes him. “What do you owe him?”

Smirking, Alucard traces two fingers over the seam of Rhy’s underwear, and Kell bites his lip hard enough to taste the familiar coppery tang of blood. He’s out of breath, too hot even sitting here outside in the night air.  

“I don’t think he’s figured out what he wants yet,” Alucard says.

The two of them look over at Kell, Rhy tracing his lips where he must be feeling the phantom sting of Kell’s bite.

“I can hear you, you know,” Kell snaps. “I’m sitting right here.”

“So you are.” Rhy wiggles out of Alucard’s embrace and sinks down next to Kell on the hard stone floor. He’s shed his princely costume, just a thin white undershirt through which Kell can see the tense clench of his stomach, the spray of dark hair across his chest. He’s not sure why it seems so disarming here in this moment. Kell grew up looking at Rhy. He isn’t supposed to still be able to surprise Kell like this.

He surprises Kell by kissing him. It's soft, just a press of lips to lips, but Kell feels it double, every atom of Rhy's pleasure coupled with his own. The world narrows in focus, the entire universe winnowed down to the way Rhy melts into his arms, like maybe he's tired, the way Kell sometimes is, of their shared soul living in two separate bodies.

Alucard knows Rhy and Kell are bonded: life for life, blood for blood, and pain for pain. Kell never thought he would be grateful for that, but as Kell deepens the kiss, overwhelmed with the feedback from the bond, it’s reassuring to have someone else beside him. Someone who can keep track if the hands on his hips are his or Rhy’s. If Rhy is the one making those noises, or if the high animal whine Kell hears through the fog of his own lust is Kell. It’s impossible to tell where Rhy ends and Kell begins, and each sensation like pressing on a bruise just to feel it ache, magnified again and again one thousand-fold.

“Kell, Kell, Kell,” Rhy whispers, climbing into his lap, twisting his hands into Kell’s hair. His pupils are blown wide, glassy and black.

Kell is greedy; this is a known fact. He wants a foot in every world, a trinket from every London, a new adventure every week. He wants Alucard because Alucard is a challenge, one of the few Kell has yet to master. He wants Rhy, full stop. They've always belonged to each other, but somewhere along the way things got tangled up, is all. It sets Kell’s teeth on edge. Rhy fucks a lot of people but _loves_ Alucard in that reckless, all-consuming fire of a first love. Kell already has to share Rhy with a nation, to surrender him to anything less than true love is unthinkable.

Alucard hauls Rhy back up onto the patio chair and drags Kell with him, refusing to relinquish his hold. The bond between them still sings through his blood, bright and alive. 

“Is this you deciding what you want?” Alucard asks Kell, pushing Rhy belly-down onto the divan.

Kell nods, dazed. He’s not certain of much these days, but he’s certain of this: Rhy is territory Kell’s unwilling to cede without a fight.

Alucard eats Rhy out first, his pants shoved low enough down his thighs that Alucard can settle between his spread thighs, part his cheeks, and get him wet with the flat of his tongue. Kell shudders at the echo of Alucard's mouth, the rough scratch of his stubble as he opens Rhy with the tip of his tongue. Rhy pushes back against the sensation, wanting more, and Alucard pins his hips, keeps him exactly where he wants him.

“There’s no patience in you, is there?” Alucard says, ignoring Rhy’s indignant swearing to push his trousers down and free his own cock. It's big, flushed dark and thick in a way that makes Kell hot to the tips pf his fingers. Alucard catches him staring and gives him a leer, lips wet and bruised.

Rhy makes a sound, clawing his way back to Alucard’s center of attention.

Alucard sighs. “You have no respect for the long game,” he says, lining up behind Rhy and pushing in in one long, punishing stroke.

It’s difficult to tell which one of them is the feverish one: is it Kell, who feels the thick burn of Alucard’s cock as keenly as if he were taking it himself? Or is it Rhy, whose chest is flushed a dull red, and who makes little wounded noises every time Alucard gives him a particularly jarring bounce.

Rhy slumps against Alucard's chest, shivering weakly. Alucard kisses the matted, sweaty hair curling at his temple with a gentleness Kell hadn't expected of him. Kell's relieved that he doesn't attempt to kiss Kell too, just smiles, one hand curling in the crook of Kell’s knee. There’s an extra warmth to his touch lost in translation across the bond. If Kell leans into the touch, well. The night is chiller than expected.  

The stars may have shifted around Kell, but the hand on his knee is an anchor and a promise. Kell watches Alucard. Alucard watches him back, waiting.

“We should burn the ottoman too,” Kell says finally. He shifts closer, into the shared heat of Rhy and Alucard, and hears Alucard huff out a laugh. “Tomorrow night. Same time.”

“I’d be happy to help.” Alucard says, and moves to make room for them both.

**Author's Note:**

> I celebrate myself, and sing myself,  
> And what I assume you shall assume,  
> For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.  
> -Walt Whitman "Song of Myself"


End file.
